Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Brit Nat Nu Labour hypocrisy

I Watched on TV some of the Government of Wales Bill Debate at the House of Lords a few weeks back. Many old faces from the past of Welsh politics appeared and spoke - Lord Crickhowell and Lord Roberts of the Tories etc. I'm surprised some of them are still alive!

And then, up steps Baroness Anita Gale of Blaenrhondda. Labour's Women’s officer for Wales from 1976 - 1984, and then General Secretary for Wales between 1984 and 1999, at which point she retired after being appointed to the House of Lords. Keeping a straight face she said:

"It is wrong that a candidate rejected by the electorate in a first past the post election can some how appear i
n power in front of the electorate. We can not allow candidates for election to the National Assembly to stand in a seat and on the regional list".

A few days later, it was announced that Maggie Jones, the Nu Labour candidate who lost the party's safest Welsh seat (Blaenau Gwent) in the 2005 general election, is to be made a peer.

Maggie has never been elected to any role in her life. And her prize for being the biggest loser in Welsh political history - a cosy seat in the House of Lords.


It simply beggars belief!

5 comments:

Normal Mouth said...

Baroness Gale is Anita Gale, former General Secretary of the Wales Labour Party.

Labour's defeated candidate in Blaenau Gwent was Maggie Jones.

Nicholas Michael Morgan said...

Cheers for that. We need a better team of editors ;-) send an email if you want to help!

Normal Mouth said...

Well, I note that Maggie Jones has today been ennobled, so I'm sure you can write about her in the future.

Nicholas Michael Morgan said...

Cheers for the tip! ;-)

cornubian said...

rather like the comments made by a Nu Labour Brit Nat about the campaign for a Cornish Assembly.

Those who listened to the YOU AND YOURS BBC Radio 4 programme on Tuesday 18th April "Can regional government be effective and accountable?" will have heard Dr Phyllis Starkey (Dr Phyllis Starkey, Labour MP for Milton Keynes South West and Chair of the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) say in regard to a caller who put the case for Cornwall, that she suspects the government will not redraw lines on the map (ie treat Cornwall as a region outside of the current south west region) as this would use up a lot of money and energy instead of delivering services or organising strategies. She went on to say they had a lot of evidence from callers to the programme from Cornwall, but she then almost dismissed Cornwall's case by saying some of the callers had put the case for "independence".

Cornish Constitutional Convention
http://www.cornishassembly.org/

Now sign the petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/kernow2/petition.html